Abstract: The paper focuses on the Radošević family, whose members made a significant contribution to Serbian science in the 20th century. It presents the biographies and major scholarly works of meteorologist Milutin Radošević (1897–1979), his wife, Slavicist and Russian-language teacher Natalia Aleynikova Radošević (1903–1980), and their daughter, Byzantologist Ninoslava Nina Radošević (1943–2007). Beyond recounting the private and family history set against the turbulent backdrop 20th century, this paper also traces the development of individual scientific disciplines at the University of Belgrade, and the contribution of one family to Serbian science and culture in various professions and scientific disciplines as a whole.

Keywords: Serbia, history of science, University of Belgrade, Milutin Radošević, Natalija Radošević, Ninoslava Radošević, meteorology, Slavic studies, Byzantine Studies

Summary: Archival materials preserved at the State Archives of Serbia have made it possible to reconstruct the history of the eminent Radošević family, whose members made a significant contribution to Serbian science in the twentieth century. In the first half of that century, the spouses, Milutin and Natalija Radošević, left a discernible mark within their respective academic disciplines; Milutin in meteorology, and Natalija as a noted Slavist and teacher of Russian language, an author of several books, with numerous articles published in linguistic and pedagogical journals. Of Russian origin, born on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan, Natalija commenced her studies in Slavonic philology in Berlin, where she met her future husband Milutin Radošević. After acquiring Yugoslav citizenship, she subsequently continued her studies in Belgrade. Although she twice served as an assistant at the Slavic Seminar of the Faculty of Philosophy, she continued her career outside of the University, while continuing to teach Russian language. As a distinguished Slavist and linguist, Natalija Radošević made a substantial contribution to the methodology of teaching Russian, and her work in the field of linguodidactics is also highly regarded. Natalija’s results, achieved through analysing interference phenomena and typical errors arising in the process of acquiring a closely related Slavic language, are of particular note. Natalija’s husband, Milutin Radošević, was amongst the most prominent representatives of the so-called Belgrade Meteorological School. Nevertheless, his principal contribution was made not as a research scientist, but rather as a specialist, organiser, and the head of the Meteorological Observatory and Federal Hydrometeorological Institute. He addressed specific meteorological phenomena as well as issues concerning the functioning of meteorological institutions in the works he published. Ninoslava Radošević, the daughter of Natalija and Milutin, a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Byzantine Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, was one of the most erudite classical philologists of her time. For fifteen years she taught Byzantine philology at the Department of Classical Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. A significant field within her scholarly interest was in Byzantine court rhetoric. Additionally, she devoted considerable attention to the epistolography of the eleventh-century Byzantine intellectuals. Currently, her studies, based on the analysis and critical examination of imperial orations and epistles, constitute fundamental points for researchers on how to methodologically approach this category of Byzantine sources. A portion of Ninoslava Radošević’s scholarly output is devoted to exegetical themes and topics related to natural history. In these works, through the application of the fundamental methodological principles of historical scholarship – entailing work with original sources, including comparison of the translations she analysed – Radošević demonstrated that she ranks amongst the expert interpreters of theological texts. Consequently, contemporary analyses of texts that may be subsumed under Christian patristics continue to take her studies as an essential point of reference.